Keeping the postal service up & running, one stamp at a time. Usually silly, sometimes cranky, occasionally a mix of the two.

My Absolute High & Low of the Week: In & Outta the U.S.

I’ve had several pieces of snail mail in & out this week, but right now I’m just showing the two that made for quite a mood swing.

We start with the high, a surprise package from Cindi:

Look at those stamps!

This piece of mail art is so awesome, the package could have been empty, but it wasn’t: inside were tucked Peanuts washi tape, notes & stickers I’ll be able to use for some time to come. Have a look at the back of the package:

I wonder what that is Peppermint Patty is eating. Could it be my favorite sammich, the banh mi?

So fantastic.

Then, a day or two later, came the low point, of course.

I’ve started entering some of the Postcrossing Forum “you choose” reverse tags, in which we show a link to postcards we have available to send, and the next person tells us what card they want. Kinda fun, and I like that the person to whom I’m sending is guaranteed to get something s/he wants.

Well.

This week, I got tagged, and the message began: “Hello! I just tagged you. 🙂 May I please have ‘Calif. Grapevine map'”:

Alright, cool fine let’s do it… and then comes her next line:

“If I could ask a favor of you, would it be possible for you to please send the card unwritten in an envelope? That would be awesome!”

>:^(

“Transactional” is the word that’s been going through my mind the last couple of days while I have been taking a cool-off period while I decide what to do. Not being in all of this to collect anything, but rather for the ephemeral joy of little connections, creating & receiving fun mail, and perhaps even an expanded world knowledge & view, I wasn’t really prepared for someone who would come in saying “…send the card unwritten in an envelope.” That would be awesome? Awesome? Transactional.

Send her a card, unwritten in an envelope, I guess with the swap info on an attached Post-It

Pretend I hadn’t seen her “awesome” request

I really went back & forth on this. This morning, I was even pulling out envelopes to see if I had one that would accommodate the postcard (I wasn’t going to make the effort to put together one of my cool handmade envelopes, that’s for sure). A drawback of stamping & writing the card would be that it would be even more draining to have to come up with something to say to this person. A lot of back & forth on this, I say.

Finally, I went with the “I’m not paying extra postage in order to accommodate her request” route. Postcard-rate stamp, and instead of my ~13 lines usually packed into a card, I wrote, in quite large text, “Enjoy your December!”

When she receives it, it will probably be her absolute low of the week.